Atrocious, lazy cash grab, even without the woke.

A committee of gen-Y liberal arts major (so, a few millions worth in student debt) used a Chinese IA to extract visuals from the games, and fed print-outs to a troop of monkeys. And from the collective, collected, fermented poop emerged the script for this one.
That’s my version anyway.

They (whoever they are) lost any piece even remotely worthy of interest from the games’ writing. No back-story, no plot, no nothing.
The biggest offense probably being Roland. I mean, it’s not rocket science: name is Roland, class is Soldier. This character’s concept is obviously Paladin.
Roland from the games is this calm, collected man whose strong moral compass provide a counterpoint in a fun but nihilistic universe.

Here, we get Hart. So, hyper-active, try-hard, unfunny. At least they got the colour right. Then again, they never get that hue wrong, do they.

The rest of the cast is a trip down memory lane. I’m old enough to remember when Gershon was hot. And Blanchett was hot. And Curtis was a scorcher. Yeah, that old.

Here, they just look jaded and old. And boring. Welcome to Geriatric Park.

As opposed to the rest of the cast, who are downright aggravating.


As for woke: no direct preaching at least, just an all girl-boss cast, swapping all males out (Krieg and Roland are very secondary), dumbing everything down (I guess that’s to be inclusive).
All the good stuff that stands in the way of a good script.

Also, counter-woke element: for once, the red-head (Lilith) doesn't turn into a black woman at casting. Eat your heart out, MJ.


Trying to find some positive: I think I heard a few bars of Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole as background music at some point.
Nice.
And Motörhead later on.
Cool. Worth 1 point.